“The Dunwich Horror,” written in 1928 and first published in Weird Tales in April 1929, is a short story by H. P. Lovecraft, and takes place in the isolated, desolate and decrepit village of Dunwich. It revolves around Wilbur Whateley, the hideous son of Lavinia Whateley, a deformed and unstable albino mother, and an unknown father. Strange events surround Wilbur’s birth and precocious development. He matures at an abnormal rate, reaching manhood within a decade. Locals shun him and his family, and animals fear and despise him. All the while, his sorcerer grandfather indoctrinates him into certain dark rituals and the study of witchcraft. Various locals grow suspicious after Old Whateley buys more and more cattle, yet the number of his herd never increases, and the cattle in his field become mysteriously afflicted with severe open wounds.

“These low grades suggest the U.S. has a long way to go before it is in compliance with international law,” said Faiza Patel of the Brennan Center for Justice. (Photo: amboo who?/flickr/cc)

This post was originally published on Common Dreams. See more of Sarah Lazare’s articles here.

A United Nations committee of independent monitors this week released a damningassessment of human rights in the United States, showing an overall dismal performance on issues from Guantanamo Bay detentions to mass surveillance to accountability for past atrocities—earning what the U.S. Human Rights Network called a “failing grade.”

The United Nations Human Rights Committee’s investigation was one of a handful of periodic reviews aimed at evaluating countries that have ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights established in 1976. In particular, the assessment measured U.S. implementation of the committee’s recommendations for improving the country’s human rights record.… Read the rest

The minister, a 50-year-old Texas resident and avid bird watcher, said they were at Stone Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, south of Sacramento, when the creature showed up on a clear spring day.

“We were hiking and looking for Blue Herons and other migratory birds,” the woman told Cryptozoology News on Thursday. “My daughter and I saw the bird first and we both pointed to it, stunned and in shock as we tried to come up with a logical explanation for what we thought we were seeing. It was not a kite, it was a real animal,” she added about the alleged 1994 encounter.

The eyewitness says they observed the animal for about 20 minutes as it circled an area and then veered off in a different direction.

Hopes&Fears answers questions with the help of people who know what they’re talking about. Today, we try to parse how to tell if you are going to have a negative psychedelic experience.

Though they’re illegal as ever, psychedelic drugs no longer have quite the bad rap they accumulated in the decades after the 1960s. Though memories of the notorious brown acid of Woodstock still haunt young trippers, scientists recently have been more focused on the positive, even healing effects these substances can produce when they’re used in controlled settings. But, as many music festival attendees know, bad trips can still happen. We asked experts what circumstances conspire to produce these difficult experiences, and how we can avoid them in the first place.

Frederick Barrett, Faculty Member at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Department

Let me preface the following by saying that I am willing to share and represent the science on these compounds, and I am trying to reflect the best practices for research administration of these compounds, but I am not in any way encouraging or supporting the use of these compounds outside of controlled and sanctioned settings.… Read the rest

Increasingly, intelligence is only tolerated in pre-approved and reassuringly non-challenging forms – deprecatory humor (Stephen Fry), decaffeinated reasoning (Alain de Botton), or suspiciously grand narratives (Simon Schama). Žižek himself is constantly pigeonholed by such media clichés as ‘the Elvis of cultural theory’ and ‘the Marx Brother’. This event sets out to question ‘what can be done?’ by serious thought in a culture of sound bites. Is the best that media philosophers can hope for to ‘Try again, fail again, fail better’?

There’s an infographic doing the rounds that shows what happens to your body one hour after drinking a can of Coca-Cola (and similar carbonated sugary drinks). You’ll never drink a coke again if you know what’s good for you:

So you can imagine how unpopular I became in WALMART’s head office in the UK with my information strongly advising people to stop drinking fizzy drinks like Coke!

I recently came across a great article by Wade Meredith that explains very well what happens when you drink just 1 can of Coca Cola and this applies to pretty much most caffeinated soft drinks, not just Coke!

A controversial statue unveiled by the Satanic Temple at a secret ceremony in Detroit has attracted protests. But who is the goat-headed figure? And what do the elements of the statue symbolise?

The bronze statue is nearly 9ft tall and depicts a winged hermaphrodite known as Baphomet, flanked by two smiling children. It cost $100,000 (£64,000) to make and hundreds of Satanists turned out to see it unveiled.

The creators of “Trump: What’s the Deal” have released the feature length documentary for free. The film was created 25 years ago and Trump threw quite a hissy fit to have it suppressed. Thus it was never officially broadcast. Below is the trailer. You can watch the film here.

On March 3, 1876, one Mrs. Crouch was working in her yard in Bath County, Kentucky, making soap, when suddenly “meat which looked like beef began to fall all around her. The sky was perfectly clear at the time.” Falling like large snowflakes and settling all around the 5000 square foot yard, pieces of flesh ranging in size from about two inches square to four, dotted the ground and were even stuck on the fences. When it first appeared, the meat was said to be fresh, and, accordingly, two unidentified (but brave) men even sampled it.

On July 22, in announcing the federal indictment of Charleston killer Dylann Roof, Attorney General Loretta Lynch commented that the expression of forgiveness offered by the victims’ families is “an incredible lesson and message for us all.”

Forgiveness and grace are, indeed, hallmarks of the Black Church.

Since slavery, the church has been a formidable force for the survival of blacks in an America still grappling with the residual effects of white supremacy.

This was eloquently illustrated in the aftermath of the Charleston church massacre. Americans rightly stood in awe of the bereaved families’ laudable demonstration of God’s grace in action.

But what about the psychic toll that these acts of forgiveness exact?

Events like Charleston put a spotlight on the growing body of literature that looks not only at the United States’ failure to have authentic conversations about slavery and its legacy but also at the mental health impact of forgiving acts of white racism and repressing justifiable feelings of anger and outrage – whether these are horrific acts of terrorism or nuanced microaggressions.… Read the rest